Sorority holds discussion on labels, sexuality

For Charlotte Frazier, labels don’t always tell the whole truth.

Twenty-six students convened around a conference table Thursday night to talk about gender, labels and equality. Zeta Sigma Chi, a multicultural sorority, hosted “50 Shades of Gay,” a discussion in room 310 of the William Pitt Union on LGBTQ issues, taking its inspiration from a TED talk of the same name. Frazier, the sorority’s cultural coordinator, led the discussion. 

Frazier, who is a senior majoring in early childhood education, played a video of the TED talk, which was given by photographer and actress iO Tillett Wright in December 2012, on a flatscreen television in front of the room. Wright addressed the problems created whenever a person is labelled. Terms like “homosexual” and “heterosexual,” she said, are unable to convey a person’s sexuality and identity properly.

“Human beings are not one-dimensional,” Wright said. “There are a million different shades of gay.”

Frazier passed around two papers before and after the attendees viewed Wright’s talk, the first of which had empty boxes printed on it. She asked attendees to write down labels they would assign to themselves and labels others would give to them.

Some found writing down these labels difficult, particularly in a box which occupied the biggest amount of space on the page. One left it blank, referring to it as “intimidating”. 

“Writing [the labels] down felt too permanent,” another said.

Frazier said it was interesting that the act of filling out the boxes stressed some of the participants out.

“Filling them in is hard if you see yourself as a human and not a label,” Frazier said.

The second paper that Frazier handed out had only the words “I am a human” printed on it. Attendees were encouraged to describe themselves in the blank space. Some wrote lists of qualities “more realistic” than the optimistic generalizations they put in the boxes on the other page. 

A female student confessed to writing that she “makes mistakes” and is a “people pleaser to a fault.” Another drew pictures.

One of the few males in the group found this exercise more difficult than the first, saying he “needed structure” to define himself.

The sorority promoted the event through a Facebook page and posters, which Bekah Miller, a sophomore in charge of the sorority’s public relations, designed. To create the poster, Miller modified the cover of the popular book “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

“I try to think about what would be eye-catching,” she said. “People get excited about raunchy stuff.”

Emily Yu, a junior studying English literature, attended the discussion and said she hopes future events receive even more publicity so more people will attended.

Frazier ended the discussion with a quote from Wright’s talk.

“Visibility is key,” she said. “Familiarity is a gateway drug to empathy.”